Home of the Brave
by EbonyIvoryy
Summary: Ed's stationed in Vietnam.


**Title:** "Home of the Brave"  
**Author: **Ebonyivoryy / theothardus  
**Pairing:** Ed/Winry  
**Rating:** T, just for the hell of it.  
**Summary: **Ed's stationed in Vietnam.  
**Disclaimer: **I do not make money I do not associate I dodajfinfjfuiedvnsdnoi  
**Notes: **AU. Takes place in 1960s America.  
**A/N: **Now that I'm posting most of my fics on Archive Of Our Own, I have a lot to catch up on here. I HAD to post this one. It's one of my proudest fics.

**XXX**

The sun's shadow glared against his iris, his pupil pointed through the vibrating glass. For miles, nothing but overgrown weeds. No hills, no green pastures, like the ones back in his hometown. Even though he was continents away from bullets and booby traps, continents away from that Hell, he still didn't feel like he was home.

Only the bumpy tremors of the bus shook him from his primal train of thought. The men he has seen, the men that had fought alongside him—some of them his buddies—blown to bits by the deceivingly innocent. Women and children have all been pray to his bullet. How can he live on, remembering all of the young faces that were bloodied with his fingers, every time his eyelids slid shut? How must he live on, with the guilt that resides inside of him, with the knowledge that he had killed another human being?—Someone's father, brother, son. But what could he do? It was either kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest. When someone comes at you with a knife, it is only instinct that you send a sniper shell into their side. Fear is what kept him going, running.

It still is.

Months, _years _of trudging through forests foreign to the American eye. Not knowing what awaited you around the tree trunk. Not knowing your enemy, whether it be a man or a bug. He needed to think like a savage, so he'd need to act like a savage, too. After all, he was a military dog. A machine of a man.

Private Elric didn't know what who to point the barrel of his gun at, he didn't know why he was given the orders he was given, _he didn't even know why he was fighting for his country._

This damned country. It is supposed to be a democracy; the land of the free! So _why? _What was he fighting for? What were his buddies fighting for? His jaw clenched at the thought. Could it be plausible to think that his friends have died in vain?

Suddenly, he felt rage at the "Home of the Brave".

His fists balled in his lap. The bandages over his knuckles didn't cover every wound. Cuts and burns could still be found against the bone; scars from months past were tattooed to his flesh.

He knew what awaited him. Angry herds of people, waving their signs and tossing their spit at the soldiers they labeled "baby killers". And they were right for it.

_I'll never let Al be a killer. I'll never let him be drafted in this damn war._

Al was already eighteen. Luckily, a college education was the only thing keeping him safe. But how long would it last? He was his little brother. He had a duty to protect him. That was mom's unspoken dying wish.

XXX

He struggled to adjust to the light as he stepped off the bus, hand acting as a make-shift shield from the sun. This made it harder to identify the figures in the crowd—those that waited anxiously for their loved one in uniform.

It happened in an instant. Something leaped and wrapped its arms and legs around his frame. Somehow, he was able to keep his balance. The sudden action startled him, to be honest. Paranoia continued to nip him in the gut.

When his eyes adjusted, however, the first thing in his sight was a bundle of feathered blonde strands, tickling his nose and eyelashes. A familiar scent teased his senses, something consisting of honeysuckle and oil. A recognizable voice gasped his name—so sweetly, so soundly.

Unsure if this wasn't just another daydream before battle, or one as he drifted off after reading a letter from home, he pulled his head back, looking over the face that belonged to this bundle constricting him.

"…Winry…"

He knew those big blue eyes anywhere, and though her countenance was wrought with tears, he was immediately reassured that this was his childhood friend in his arms.

She was speechless. He could tell by the way her lips trembled, placing her hands all over the sides of his face. Then she buried her nose into the nape of his neck. He felt the heat rising to his cheeks as her lips pressed to his ear and nape of his neck, showing the "I missed yous'" they failed to speak.

His legs weakened. It took everything he had not to collapse right then and there.

Suddenly, two hands—much softer hands, at that—snatched his, wrapping them around Winry's waist.

"Hug me back, you idiot!" she yammered through her tears, mirth hinted lightly in her tone. He couldn't resist a grin, snickering as she exclaimed this. Nonetheless, he followed his orders, the orders he had _faith _in following, and held her closer.

"Am I home yet?" he asked, chuckling.

There was a pause. And an answer.

"You'll always have a home as long as me and your brother are here."

He smiled at that, but hid it in her pillow of sunny hair. While one of his arms remained snaked tightly around her hips, the other drifted to her soft palm, digits dancing up to her ring finger.

_I'll make an honest woman out of you. I swear by it, Winry._

**_Fin_**


End file.
